The Power of Expectation

Pekarik, Andrew J.; Schreiber, James B.

doi:10.1111/j.2151-6952.2012.00171.x

Cited by 27 publications

(23 citation statements)

References 11 publications

(9 reference statements)

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“…There, the results presented in this article will be discussed using current and seminal museum studies literature on visitor experience (e.g. Bitgood 2013;Pekarik, Doering, and Karns 1999;Pekarik and Schreiber 2012;Pekarik and Mogel 2010;Smith 2014), learning and meaning (e.g. Silverman 1995; Packer 2008), identity (e.g.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 97%

What is ‘the real thing’ in the museum? An interpretative phenomenological study

Latham

2015

Museum Management and Curatorship

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This article describes a study of the different ways museum visitors understand their experience of the real thing (TRT) in the museum context. Many professionals and scholars claim that the uniqueness of the museum -in relation to other leisure and educational experiences and offerings -centers on being the keepers of 'real things.' Having an insight into the visitor perspectives of what they consider real is important and relevant to museum professionals as well as other cultural heritage workers as it can assist them to better respond to visitor experiences of TRT. The study used an interpretative phenomenological analysis approach to inquire into the qualitatively different ways of understanding the experience of TRT in the museum. The research resulted in four ways of understanding an experience of TRT in museums: through aspects of the self, in relation to others, through the presence of the actual physical thing, and through one's surroundings.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 97%

What is ‘the real thing’ in the museum? An interpretative phenomenological study

Latham

2015

Museum Management and Curatorship

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“…It goes without saying that different visitor studies serve different purposes. Some involve insights in what visitors find satisfying (Pekarik & Schreiber, 2012;Rounds, 2004), what or how they prefer to learn (Falk, Dierking, & Foutz, 2007;Hooper-Greenhill, 1999), while others may focus on the optimal marketing approach (Goulding, 2000;Kotler, Kotler, & Kotler, 2008).…”

Section: Investigating Visitor Profiles As a Valuable Addition To Musmentioning

confidence: 98%

Investigating Visitor Profiles as a Valuable Addition to Museum Research

Lewalter

Phelan

Geyer

et al. 2015

International Journal of Science Education, Part B

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There is a long tradition of museum research assessing visitors' personal background. In this article, we suggest an insightful way to enhance and intensify visitor analyses and adopt a more integrative approach. To this end, we draw attention to Latent Class Analysis (LCA), a classification method that allows us to investigate visitor profiles rather than isolated characteristics while using a mixture of socio-demographic variables and other personal characteristics. We illustrate our suggestion with two examples drawn from a study we conducted at two science museums and two museums of cultural history. The first example shows the use of LCA on variables that are easily assessed and that many museums already have access to through their visitor surveys. The second LCA involves more specific cognitive and motivational visitor variables that are of general importance for learning and that are assumed to be especially important when dealing with conflicting information. Both examples illustrate the additional value of investigating visitor profiles for researchers as well as museum practitioners.

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“…Visitor expectations tend to frame the resulting experience, with there being a strong agreement between expectations and eventual experience among visitors to various Smithsonian exhibitions (Pekarik & Schreiber, 2012). This suggests that visitors are attuned to finding those exhibition elements that will meet their expectations.…”

Section: Characterising Satisfying Visitor Experiencesmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…Visitors will be attracted to those exhibits and environments that offer the greatest fit with their needs and goals (Pekarik & Schreiber, 2012;Rui Olds, 1994) and respond negatively to environments that confound and frustrate them. This positive or negative appraisal in the context of outcome desirability will then be further shaped through appraisals of other dimensions.…”

Section: Cognitive Appraisal In the Museum Contextmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…interest in subject matter vs. interest in design or area of professional expertise) may be related to how influenced visitors feel by the exhibition environment. Prior expectations have been shown to be significant predictors of reported experience in museum exhibitions (Pekarik & Schreiber, 2012 Object, 23% Physical, and 21% had no single preference . None of these map in any obvious way onto EF visitors, although there could possibly be a link between EF and the aesthetic preference of Object visitors or the emphasis on sensory experiences of Physical visitors.…”

Section: Comparing Experience Measures For Ef N and Nef Visitorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Design factors in the museum visitor experience

Forrest¹

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Over the past half-century, museums have evolved from being predominantly cultural repositories to playing an important social role as venues for educational leisure experiences. Accompanying this development has been an increased emphasis on optimising the visitor experience. The physical context of the museum has long been recognised as an important facet of the visitor experience (Falk & Dierking, 2000). However, the way that visitors perceive and respond to different types of exhibition environments on a holistic level has received relatively little research attention until recently. A key limitation in advancing research in this area has been a paucity of methods for quantifying and analysing visitor perceptions of the exhibition environment beyond simple measures of satisfaction. In order to address this gap, this thesis describes the development of a model for characterising how visitors perceive different exhibition environments -Perceived Atmosphere -and relates it to different facets of the visitor experience.As part of this study, a quantitative instrument known as the Perceived Atmosphere Instrument was piloted and refined. This allows the relationship between exhibition environment and visitor experience to be explored in greater depth. Development of Perceived Atmosphere was informed by environmental psychology, in particular environmental cognition, theories of spatial perception and the research field known as atmospherics (Kotler, 1974). Atmospherics is the study of the influence of retail environments and other service settings on customer attitudes and behaviour, and this study applied similar methods to a museum context. Both qualitative and quantitative data were collected to explore and compare visitors' perceptions of different exhibition environments at the South Australian Museum, a large natural and cultural history museum located in Adelaide, Australia. Qualitative data were collected through 12 prearranged accompanied visits to the museum, while quantitative data were collected from 602 visitors to the museum who agreed to participate in the study by completing a questionnaire that incorporated the Perceived Atmosphere Instrument. In addition, a small number of participants (n = 60) were unobtrusively tracked prior to completing the survey, allowing some preliminary analysis of the relationship between Perceived Atmosphere and visitor behaviour.Factor analysis of the 30 semantic differentials that comprise the Perceived Atmosphere Instrument produced a four factor solution interpreted as Vibrancy, Spatiality, Order and Theatricality. There were statistically significant differences between galleries on three of these four dimensions. These differences were interpretable in light of each gallery's physical characteristics, but also indicate ii that a space's perceived affordances are as important as its measurable physical properties. Of the Perceived Atmosphere dimensions, Vibrancy is the strongest predictor of affective, cognitive and behavioural engagement. Spatiality is a p...

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The Power of Expectation

Cited by 27 publications

References 11 publications

What is ‘the real thing’ in the museum? An interpretative phenomenological study

What is ‘the real thing’ in the museum? An interpretative phenomenological study

Investigating Visitor Profiles as a Valuable Addition to Museum Research

Design factors in the museum visitor experience

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